Lights. Camera. RCNM.

In Mumbai it’s ‘Pav Bhaji’, in Delhi it’s ‘Kulcha-Chhole’. In New York it’s ‘Cheesecake’ and in Philadelphia it’s a ‘Cheesesteak’. Seemingly, every great city has it’s Food rivalries and every local has his/her favourite. How is anyone  supposed to decide where to eat Pizza in Chicago when a simple Google search yields more than 81,300 pizza places! Or the fact that every corner shop claims to be “The Original” yet you walk down two blocks and you find- yet again, another “The Original”. June 7 was celebrated  the ‘National Doughnut Day’ in the US with many bakeries offering free doughnuts to customers. This food holiday gave rise to a long standing debate: which is the better doughnut, yeasted or cake? The pros and cons are that the yeast doughnuts are light and airy with a pleasant squish. They are so delicate that you can eat about six or eight of them before your brain registers that you’re full (perhaps too full). Cake doughnuts on the other hand are crumbly and b...

Situation at hand - Those of us who had Economics in high school are very familiar with the concept of 'substitutes'. That is, if I cannot get A then I am happy to stick to B. The most widely used example when we explained 'substitutes' in our exam papers was the so-called alternative between tea and coffee. If the price of coffee beans goes up, we wrote, it's not a problem at all -- we just buy some more tea bags and get on with our lives! The Back-story -  After two years of college, which I can safely say were the most caffeine-intensive days of my short life, I can't help but question this concept, because when your assignment is due in eight hours and you've written exactly three words, will a cup of tea do the job? Or when you're having a laid-back hangout with friends after dinner, who wants to gulp down black coffee and stay up all night? So here was the clincher: are tea and coffee really substitutes? And which one do you prefer? N...